Tag Archives: Sabbath

“Here, then, is the hard work of Sabbath,” I wrote in my journal. “Awoken by dreams of a house never found and people mocking for it. Nightmares of life falling apart. I come to consciousness ready for a fight. Ready to re-double my to-do list, spend the day house hunting, clear all emails.

Perhaps this is one of those ragged pieces of me that needs to be tucked back away… the American assuredness that working just a little bit harder will bring about the desired results. The Sabbath – the call to rest and to worship – calls me to remember that every good and perfect gift comes from above. From my Heavenly Father who does give good gifts.”

And so, instead of fighting the morning’s panic of failure by throwing myself more into work, I pulled out the next Henri Nouwen book on my reading list and prepared to spend a day of rest.

***

“Why don’t you believe that God gives his children good gifts?” asked my coworker.Nearly a year later, her question still rings in my ears.I was telling her about an opportunity that seemed perfect. Seemed so perfect, I doubted it could be true. Looking for the bad teeth in the gift horse’s mouth.

It’s a question that came up again recently.“Why do you expect disappointment?” she asked me.And I knew that I do. I know that I’m surprised and suspicious when something good happens. Surprised that it actually happened and suspicious that it’s been given to me only for the purposes of taking it away later. Instead of the twisted “health and wealth” gospel, I’ve twisted too far in the opposite direction. I’ve become wary of all blessing.

***

Instead of a day of rest, the Sabbath turned into a day of many errands. All of the things I was tempted to orchestrate myself ended up being delivered to my front door.

Not only did a friend take me to an empty apartment that will shortly become my new home, it’s also a perfect place to hold classes. I went from having neither to having both all in one day.

A friend came to my home and we experimented in the kitchen and – amid much laughter – came up with a delicious concoction.

And there was the chance to tell that beautiful, beautiful Story. The Story that calls us to cease striving. To stop trying to earn it and do it all ourselves. The Story that says the God with impossibly high standards does not mock us for failure – but steps in to provide everything we need.

It’s a story that I still find hard to believe. I still prefer long stretches of penance and emotional self-flagellation. I am still capable of looking at all blessing – even this one – with more cynicism than thanks.

But this time, as I sip chai with my new landlords and imagine how I’ll lay out my new apartment, I’m trying to keep the hounds of skepticism at bay.

She was a graying, single woman who’d spent the majority of her life hacking her way through jungle-overgrown roads to get to various middle-of-nowheres. You couldn’t tell, though, from her step that still sprung and voice that still captured a room.

But what kind of advice was this from someone whose gumption and type-A-ness had propelled her into more countries and jobs than we could even dream of? We wanted to hear how to change the world, make the biggest impact possible with our lives, and – possibly – inspire world peace and harmony through our tireless work. Instead, she told us to remember to take a Sabbath, sleep in late as often as possible, and to create in-between spaces for the express purpose of sitting empty for a while.

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Some of the best advice I’ve ever heard about prayer came from a book (now since long forgotten) teaching centering prayer. It acknowledged that as you sat silent, trying to focus your attention on Christ, your mind would indeed begin to wander.

When you realize your mind is wandering, the book said, the first response is generally to begin berating ourselves. Instead, the author wrote, simply sigh and gently bring your mind back to the centering phrase or Scripture and begin to pray it again and re-focus your attention. Why waste another five minutes distracted from prayer by scolding yourself?

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My work week generally ends on Saturday afternoon with the making of next week’s to-do list. It’s never short and often contains one or two things that were supposed to get done this week, not next. And then I close my planner – list inside, go make dinner and plop down for a movie, thus beginning the week’s Sabbath.

The list, however, is never far from my mind. All Sunday afternoon, as I read through my latest for-fun book or hang out with friends, I keep thinking about the list. Maybe if I just answered those four emails it would help me get a jump on the week. I do enjoy writing, so is it really work if I just write three blog posts for next week?

And yet I’ve decided that a true Sabbath – a chance to rest – does not include any of those things, so I try to ignore their call to “productivity”.

As I do, I think I’m learning one of the reasons God chose to give us a Sabbath. Why He told the Israelites they weren’t allowed to gather manna, or work in their fields, or even get their servants to do work for them on the Sabbath. Because every week it reminded them that the work did not depend on them. The world did not stop on its axis, the crops in the field didn’t wither. And every week I am reminded that the work I do does not first and foremost depend on my effort but on the presence of a God my hard work does not control.

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With a list of work pending a mile long and people calling, wondering when that work they’re waiting on from me would get emailed – I took a week to sleep in, to be unplanned, to do whatever whenever I felt like it. After three months of moving around, saying goodbyes, planning big events, and riding the wave of adrenaline that comes with doing things last minute I needed some time to lay empty. I was gentle with myself. I sighed and brought my scattered, sorrowed attention back to where it’s supposed to be.

And the world didn’t stop spinning. Some work actually got done (surprisingly enough!) and I found in the emptiness opportunities to seize that I wouldn’t have noticed running around in all the glory of productivity.

Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat – for he grants sleep to those he loves. Psalm 127:1-2

I used to not really take one, making my day off the day to do laundry, catch up on housework or email.

But lately, I’ve felt like I need to stick to the routine of working six days then resting (completely) on one. Taking a legitimate Sabbath.

And it is hard!

I can be completely unmotivated to write, answer email, or clean my house every other day of the week – but when the Sabbath rolls around, suddenly I have three great ideas for blogs, have the sense I’m going to miss a really important email, and start noticing how dirty my floors are.

In Exodus 16, when the Israelites start getting manna, they had similar issues. God told them straight-up, “collect extra manna on the day before the Sabbath, ‘cause you shouldn’t be collecting on the Sabbath”. But for some reason, people didn’t want to do that. Maybe they didn’t really believe the Sabbath would yield no manna? Maybe they didn’t trust that the extra wouldn’t go bad over the Sabbath like it had earlier in the week? Maybe they just didn’t like the idea of resting.

So God basically locks them in their houses. He says, “Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day”. It’s like a parent calling to a disobedient child, “You are not to leave your room!”

We all profess to love the idea of a day off. So why, when we get the opportunity to have it do we suddenly feel the need to load it down with a myriad of activities we said we wanted to escape from? What is it about a day of rest that we find disquieting?